1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for manufacturing a partition wall for partitioning a discharge space of a plasma display device.
2. Description of Related Art
A plasma display device produces a discharge in a specific gas and excites a fluorescent material to form an image. The discharge is caused by applying a voltage between two electrodes in a closed space containing a gas. A picture is formed by exciting a patterned fluorescent layer with ultraviolet rays generated from the gas discharge.
The plasma display device includes a partition wall between an upper substrate and a lower substrate defining a discharge space. At least a pair of electrodes for a main discharge or a supplementary discharge are located in the discharge space according to the kind of plasma display device. The partition wall is generally formed on the upper surface of the lower substrate. A method for forming the partition wall according to a conventional printing method will be described with reference to FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 1, an electrode layer 12 having a predetermined pattern is formed on the upper surface of a substrate 11 and a dielectric layer 13, an insulating layer, is formed on the upper surface thereof. A partition wall 15 is formed by putting a screen 14 having the same pattern as that of the partition wall on the upper surface of the dielectric layer 13, repeatedly printing the material of the partition wall at a thickness of 10 through 15 .mu.m, and drying and curing the material.
In the described method, deformation of the pattern of the partition wall must occur due to the repetition of printing, drying, and curing processes in forming the partition wall 15. In particular, the substrate and the screen must be repeatedly aligned to repeatedly print the partition wall. In this process, the precision in forming the partition wall may be lowered due to a misalignment.
Another conventional method for forming the partition wall on the lower substrate is shown in FIGS. 2A through 2C. As shown in FIG. 2A, a partition layer 24 having a thickness corresponding to a height of the partition wall is formed on the upper surface of a substrate 23 on which an electrode layer 21 and a dielectric layer 22 having a pattern are sequentially formed. As shown in FIG. 2B, an abrasion preventing mask 25 is formed on the partition layer 24 using a photoresist method. Any material which is not abraded by blasted sand can be used as the abrasion preventing mask 25. Then, as shown in FIG. 2C, sand is blasted against the upper surface of the partition layer 24 with air or water at a high pressure to abrade a portion where the abrasion preventing mask 25 is not present, forming a discharge space.
Some part of the partition layer 24 which was not abraded becomes a partition wall 26. However, in such a method, processes for forming the abrasion preventing mask 25 are complicated. Since the material of the partition wall is removed as a fine powder, the work is contaminated and an additional washing process for removing the sand attached to the partition wall is necessary. In this method, a lot of time is required for forming the partition wall.